The Abbess Of Vlaye Part 32

As she pondered, the near prospect of success set the possibility of failure, through some accident, through some mischance, in a more terrible aspect. She hated the trembling fugitive cowering in his hiding-place behind the Duke's bed; she wished to heaven he were in des Ageaux' hands again. The danger of a mutiny on his account, a danger that despite her courage chilled her, would then be at an end.

True, such a mutiny menaced the Lieutenant in the first place and the Countess in the second; and she could spare them. But she could not be sure that it would go no farther. She could not be sure that its burning breath would not lap all in the camp. Had she been sure--that had been another matter. And behold, as she thought of it, from some cell of the brain leapt full-grown a plan; a plan wicked enough, cruel enough, terrible enough, to shock even her, but a clever plan if it could be executed!

She had little doubt that the Lieutenant would overcome the difficulty of the morning and succeed in persuading the peasants that he was guiltless of the escape of the prisoner. Suppose he succeeded, what would happen if it leaked out later that the prisoner had been hidden all the time in the Lieutenant's huts? Particularly if it leaked out at a time when the Lieutenant and the Countess lay in the peasants'

power in the peasants' camp? And for choice after the arrival of the first batch of spears had secured the rest of the party from danger?

What would happen to des Ageaux and the Countess in that event?

It was a black thought. The beautiful face bent over the book of offices grew perceptibly harder. But what better fate did they deserve who took on themselves to mar and meddle? They who incited her very brothers, clownish hobbledehoys, and her mawkish sister to rise up against her and against _him?_ If fault there was, the fault lay with those who threw down the glove. The Lieutenant was come for naught else but her lover's destruction: and if he fell into the pit that he digged for another he could blame himself only. As for the girl, the white-faced puling child whose help M. de Vlaye's enemies were driving him to seek, if she, with her castles and her wealth, her lands and horse and foot, could not protect herself, the issue was her affair!

Of a surety it was not her rival's!

Odette de Villeneuve's breath came a little quickly, a fine dew stood on her white forehead. Meantime the Duke watched her and wondered in an enthusiasm of piety what prayer it was that so stirred that angelic breast, what aspirations for the good of her sinning and suffering sisters swelled that saintly bosom! A vision of an ascetic life spent by her side, of Fathers read page by page in her company, of the good and the n.o.ble pursued with her under cloistered yews, of an Order such as the modern Church had never seen--such a vision wrapt him for a few blissful minutes from the cold, lower world of sense.

CHAPTER XV.

FEARS.

The Abbess was not present that evening when the hostages transferred themselves to the peasants' side of the camp. Had she witnessed the scene she had found, it is possible, matter for reflection. Hard as he had struggled against the surrender, the Lieutenant struggled almost as hard, now it was inevitable, to put a good face on it. But his easy word and laugh fell flat in face of a crowd so watchful and so ominously silent that it was useless to pretend that the step was no more than a change from a hut in this part to a hut in that. He who knew that he must, in the morning, face the men and deny them their prisoner--knew this too well. But, in truth, the downcast faces of his troopers and the furtive glances of the Vicomte's party were evidence that the matter meant much, and that these, also, recognised it; nor did the peasants, who fell in beside the two when they started, and accompanied them in an ever growing mob, seem unaware of the fact. The movement was their triumph; a sign of victory to the dullest as he ran and stared, and ran again. A section indeed there were who stood aloof and eyed the thing askance: but two of the Vicomte's party, who recognised among these the men whom the Lieutenant had denounced in the morning--the tall, light-eyed fanatic and the dwarf--held it the worst sign of all; and had it lain in their power they would even at that late hour have called back their friends.

Those two were Roger and his younger sister. With what feelings they saw des Ageaux and the Countess ride away to share a solitude full alike of danger and of alarm may be more easily imagined than described. But this is certain; whatever pangs of jealousy gnawed at Bonne's heart or reddened her brother's cheek, neither forgot the bargain they had made on the hill-side, or wished their rival aught but a safe deliverance.

As it was, could the one or the other, by the lifting of a finger, have injured the person who stood in the way, they had not lifted it or desired to lift it. But--to be in her place! To be in his place!

To share that solitude and that peril! To know that round them lay half a thousand savages, ready at the first sign of treachery to take their lives, and yet to know that to the other it was bliss to be there--this, to the two who remained in the Vicomte's huts and gave their fancy rein, seemed happiness. Yet were they sorely anxious; anxious in view of the abiding risk of such a situation, more anxious in view of the crisis that must come when the peasants learned that the prisoner had escaped. Nevertheless, they did not talk of this, even to one another.

If Roger kept vigil that night his sister did not know it. And if Bonne, whose secret was her own, started and trembled at every sound--and such a camp as that bred many a sound and some alarming ones--she told no one. But when the first grey light fell thin on the basin in the hills, disclosing here the shapeless ma.s.s of a hut, and there only the dark background of the encircling ridge, her pale face, as she peered from her lodging, confronted Roger's as he paced the turf outside. The same thought, the same fear was in the mind of brother and sister, and had been since earliest c.o.c.k-crow; and for Roger's part he was not slow to confess it. Presently they found that there was another whom care kept waking. A moment and the Bat's lank form loomed through the mist. He found the two standing side by side; and the old soldier's heart warmed to them. He nodded his comprehension.

"The trouble will not be yet awhile," he said. "He will send the lady back before he tells them. I doubt"--he shrugged his shoulders with a glance at Bonne--"if she has had a bed of roses this night."

Bonne sighed involuntarily. "At what hour do you think she will be back?" Roger asked.

"My orders are to send six riders for her half an hour after sunrise."

"A little earlier were no worse," Roger returned, his face flushing slightly as he made the suggestion.

"Nor better," the Bat replied drily. "Orders are given to be obeyed, young sir."

"And the rest of your men?" Bonne asked timidly. "They will go to support M. des Ageaux as soon as she arrives, I suppose?"

The Bat read amiss the motive that underlay her words. "Have no fear, mademoiselle," he said, "we shall see to your safety. You know the Lieutenant little if you think he will look to his own before he has ensured that of others. My lady the Countess once back with us, not a man is to stir from here. And, with warning, and the bank behind us, it will be hard if with a score of pikes we cannot push back the attack of such a crew as this!"

"But you do not mean," Bonne cried, her eyes alight, "that you are going to leave M. des Ageaux alone--to face those savages?"

"Those are my orders," the Bat replied gently; for the girl's face, scarlet with protest, negatived the idea of fear. "And orders where the Lieutenant commands, mademoiselle, are made to be obeyed; and are obeyed. Moreover," he continued seriously, "in this case they are common sense, since with a score of pikes something may be done, but with half a score here, and half a score there"--shrugging his shoulders--"nothing! Which no one knows better than my lord!"

"But----"

"The Lieutenant allows no 'buts,'" the old soldier answered, smiling at her eagerness. "Were you with him, mademoiselle--were you under his orders, I mean--it would not be long before you learned that!"

Poor Bonne was silenced. With a quivering lip she averted her face: and for a few moments no one spoke. Then, "I wish M. de Joyeuse were on his feet," the Bat said thoughtfully. "He is worth a dozen men in such a pinch as this!"

"The sun is up!" This from Roger.

"Ah!"

"How will you know when half an hour is past?"

The Bat raised his eyebrows. "I can guess it within two or three minutes," he said. "There is no hurry for a minute or two!"

"No hurry?" Roger retorted. "But the Countess--won't she be in peril?"

The Bat looked curiously at him. "For the matter of that," he said, "we are all in peril. And may-be we shall be in greater before the day is out. We must take the rough with the smooth, young sir.

However--perhaps you would like to make one to fetch her?"

Roger blushed. "I will go," he said.

"Very good," the old soldier answered. "I don't know that it is against orders. For you, mademoiselle, I fear that I cannot satisfy you so easily. Were I to send you," he continued with a sly smile, "to escort my lord back----"

"Could you not go yourself?" Bonne interrupted, her face reflecting the brightest colours of Roger's blush.

"I, indeed? No, mademoiselle. Orders! Orders!"

They did not reply. By this time the dense grey mist, forerunner of heat, had risen and discovered the camp, which here and there stirred and awoke. The open ground about the rivulet, which formed a neutral s.p.a.ce between the peasants' hovels and the quarters a.s.signed to the Vicomte, still showed untenanted, though marred and poached by the trampling of a thousand feet. But about the fringe of the huts that, low and mean as the shops of some Oriental bazaar, cl.u.s.tered along the foot of the bank, figures yawned and stretched, gazed up at the morning, or pa.s.sed bending under infants, to fetch water. Everywhere a rising hum told of renewed life. And behind the Vicomte's quarters the brisk jingle of bits and stirrups announced that the troopers were saddling.

In those days of filthy streets, and founderous sloughy roads, the great went ever on horseback, if it were but to a house two doors distant. To ride was a sign of rank, no matter how short the journey.

Across the street, across the camp it was the same; and Bonne, as she watched Roger and the five troopers proceeding with three led horses across the open, saw nothing strange in the arrangement.

But when some minutes had pa.s.sed, and the little troop did not emerge again from the ruck of hovels which had swallowed them, Bonne began to quake. Before her fears had time to take shape, however, the riders appeared; and the anxiety she still felt--for she knew that des Ageaux was not with them--gave way for a moment to a natural if jealous curiosity. How would she look, how would she carry herself, who had but this moment parted from him, who had shared through the night his solitude and his risk, his thoughts, perhaps, and his ambitions? Would happiness or anxiety or triumph be uppermost in her face?

She looked; she saw. Her gaze left no shade of colour, no tremor of eye or lip unnoticed. And certainly for happiness or triumph she failed to find a trace of either in the Countess's face. The young girl, pale and depressed, drooped in her saddle, drooped still more when she stood on her feet. No blush, no smile betrayed remembered words or looks, caresses or promises; and if it was anxiety that clouded her, she showed it strangely. For when she had alighted from her horse she did not wait. Although, as her feet touched the ground, a murmur rose from the distant huts, she did not heed it; but looking neither to right nor left, she hastened to hide herself in her quarters.

She seemed to be in trouble, and Bonne, melted, would have gone to her. But a sound stayed the elder girl at the door. The murmur in the peasants' quarter had risen to a louder note; and borne on this--as treble on base--came to the ear the shrill screech that tells of fanaticism. Such a sound has terrors for the boldest; for, irrational itself, it deprives others of reason. It gathers up all that is weak, all that is nighty, all that is cruel, even all that is cowardly, and hurls the whole, imbued with its own qualities, against whatever excites its rage. Bonne, who had never heard that note before, but knew by intuition its danger, stood transfixed, staring with terrified eyes at the distant huts. She was picturing what one instant of time, one savage blow, one shot at hazard, might work under that bright morning sky! She saw des Ageaux alone, hemmed in, surrounded by the ignorant crowd which the enthusiast was stirring to madness! She saw their lowering brows, their cruel countenances, their small, fierce eyes under matted locks; and she looked trembling to the Bat, who, stationed a few paces from her, was also listening to the shrill voice.

Had he sworn she had borne it better. But his compressed lips told of a more tense emotion; of fidelity strained to the utmost. Even this iron man shook, then! Even he to whom his master's orders were heaven's first law felt anxiety! She could bear no more in silence.

"Go!" she murmured. "Oh, go! Surely twenty men might ride through them!"

He did not look at her. "Orders!" he muttered hoa.r.s.ely. "Orders!" But the perspiration stood on his brow.

She saw that, and that his sinewy hands gripped nail to palm; and as the distant roar gathered volume, and the note of peril in it grew more acute, "Oh, go!" she cried, holding out her hands to him. "Go, Roger! Some one!" wildly. "Will you let them tear him limb from limb!"

Still "Orders! Orders!" the Bat muttered. And though his eyes flickered an instant in the direction of the waiting troopers, he set his teeth. And then in a flash, in a second, the roar died down and was followed by silence.

Silence; no one moved, no one spoke. As if fascinated every eye remained glued to the low, irregular line of huts that hid from sight the inner part of the peasants' camp. What had happened, what was pa.s.sing there? On the earthen ramparts high overhead were men, Charles among them, who could see, and must know; but so taken up were the group below, from Bonne to the troopers, in looking for what was to come, that no one diverted eye or thought to these men who knew. And though either the abrupt cessation of sound, or the subtle excitement in the air, drew the Abbess at this moment from the Duke's hut, no one noted her appearance, or the Duke's pale eager face peering over her shoulder. What had happened? What had happened behind the line of hovels, under the morning sunshine that filled the camp and rendered only more grim the fear, the suspense, the tragedy that darkened all?

Something more than a minute they spent in that absorbed gazing. Then a deep blush dyed Bonne's cheeks. The Bat, who had not sworn, swore.

The Duke laughed softly. The troopers, if their officer had not raised his hand to check them, would have cheered. Des Ageaux had shown himself in one of the openings that pierced the peasants' town. He was on horseback, giving directions, with gestures on this side and that.

A score of naked urchins ran before him, gazing up at him; and a couple of men at his bridle were taking orders from him.